The Scroll of Unfinished Tales
by Nemrut
Summary: Collection of various one-shots and responses to small challenges. Ratings and themes will vary from story to story.


This is my response to a small challenge given to me by Payce99 with the subject being "Gaara and his Teddy-bear." Read and enjoy.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of the characters.

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Himura was the proud owner of the Himura Toy Shop for over twenty years, when his father had left it to him. Since then, he had loved it since it enabled him to meet more or less most people in the village under happy circumstances. You hardly bought your child a toy when you were in a bad mood after all.

As such, he had met a lot of future shinobi over the years and knowing their hard fate, he made sure to give the toys away in a relatively low price.

Now, he smiled as a young, six year old girl was dragging her older sister around, who, judging by her vest was probably a chunin. She pointed at numerous, expensive toys and jumped up and down, only to get rejected by her eye-rolling sister.

"Come on Nee-chan, can we please buy the train and the railroad!" she begged for the tenth time.

"Unless you can magically turn sand into money I am afraid we can't." sighed the sister whom Himura remembered to be the daughter of one his old, now deceased, shinobi friends. "It is fairly expensive you know."

Himura smiled sadly as he saw the girl pout and start to look for different toys. While he would have loved to go down with the price, it was not really an option with that toy. It was a hand-made masterpiece by one of the best toymakers in the world, it was even made with chakra storing and chakra sensitive wood, which meant that if someone channeled chakra into it, or could use the puppetry jutsu, the train would move on its own and it was one of the more pricy toys in his shop.

"How about this teddy Tomoko?" suggested the older sister, pointing at the vitrine. "That one looks cute."

The child seemed to think furiously and after a while nodded which let the bigger sister smile.

"We will take it then." She informed Himura.

"Good choice, it is a nostalgic piece, they don't produce them any-"

But before he could finish his explanation, the door opened and the person who entered his shop was the one person he never expected to set a foot in his store.

"How much for the stuffed bear?" asked the fifth Kazekage of Suna, widely known as Gaara of the Desert, who was incredibly dangerous at best and a murderous psychopath at worst.

"Ka..Kazekage-sama, ah…that bear was just sold to these young women now." He glanced at Gaara's emotionless face. "B..but I am pretty sure they will relent it to you, after all, it must a pretty important person you are buying this gift for."

"Of course, it would be an honor Kazekage-sama." agreed the older sister.

"It is not a gift, I buy it for myself." said Gaara, but after looking at the girls, the older one having bent her knee, he turned around and started to walk out.

"But if it is already taken, do not trouble yourself."

Just before he had walked out, the voice of a child interrupted him.

"Aren't you a little too old for stuffed animals?"

The blood in his veins froze and all color drained from Himura's face as he saw the Kazekage stop. He had seen Gaara kill people in the past, usually for saying less and he was sure that all of them in the shop were all dead now. Gaara had killed people for breathing his air and there was no way he would let a child insult him and neither would he let witnesses of that alive. And as scarred and terrified he was, it was probably nothing what the older sister was feeling. She too had a terrified look on her, her limps were shaking, she was pale as well and while he couldn't see it, he was fairly sure that she was molding chakra and getting ready for a hopeless fight. One arm she put over her sisters chest, being reading to pick her up in a second, while the other went behind her back to grip a kunai. He saw her face, it was the saddest and most heart wrenching thing he had ever seen. He knew that she knew that she was going to die. But she was still going to try to save her sister from her leader and master.

But before the situation could escalate Gaara turned around.

"How can you be too old for stuffed animals?" he asked quietly and if Himura didn't know any better he would have said that the Kazekage seemed to be amused. Of course it was impossible to tell with the face Gaara was making.

Tomoko seemed to ponder about that and after a few seconds she conceded the point and nodded. "You are right, you can't be too old for stuffed animals. They are awesome." She seemed to pause for a moment. "You can take the bear if you want it that much, I didn't want it anyway."

Gaara didn't respond but simply nodded, sand twirling out of nowhere around the bear and carrying it towards Gaara who took it into his hands.

"Send the bill to the Kazekage-tower." He ordered Himura who was too shocked to say anything and after a few seconds of thinking he added. "and the girl can pick up anything she wants from the shop and send that bill to the tower too."

Tomoko cheered, wrestled herself loose from the grip of her sister and bolted to the railroad while Gaara exited the shop after another glance at the older sister, not saying anything about the clear and obvious intent to fight him.

Himura wiped the sweat from his forehead with a cloth while Kaoru, the older sister, collapsed on the ground, seemingly very close to hyperventilating. He rummaged through his shelves until he found a hipflask which he hastily opened and drowned half of it. Himura then offered it to Kaoru who wordlessly took it and emptied it in one go as well, now gaining color again on her face.

"That" she panted "was the scariest and most surreal thing I have ever experienced."

Himura couldn't agree more, the worst thing was, nobody would believe this story if he told it. How could anyone, if he himself could hardly believe it?


End file.
